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LOYAL PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 

8 6 Jg B R O A B ^W A Y. 



J%^o. 3@. 



REBEL CONDITIONS OF PEACE 

AND 

THE MECHANICS OF THE SOUTH. 



The spirit wliicli animates tlie leaders of the southern rebel- 
lion, and the abject condition to which the despotism they 
have established in the southern territory, which still remains 
subject to their rule, has reduced the people of the South, are 
portrayed in the following articles from the Eichmond JE'n- 
ijicirer, entitled " Peace," and the " Mechanics of the South." 
The free and intelligent people of the Northern States will do 
well to read and ponder upon the conditions which these 
haughty oligarchs propose to the free Democracy of America. 

" They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing," and 
with Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, and 
Mississi})pi, wrested from their unholy grasp, and their Minister 
Mason, retiring in disgust from the doorways of the British 
Minister, whose anti-chambers have been steadily and constantly 
closed to his entreaties, they still imagine themselves, if not the 
masters of the world, at least the arbiters of American destinies. 

The result of their schemes is shown in the miserable con- 
dition to which they have reduced their misguided, deluded 
and betrayed people, and the mechanics of the North can 
plainly see what tlieir fate would be should the rebel hopes- 
of success be fultilled. 

Fortunately the present position of their aiiairs gives neither 
warrant to their hopes, nor reason for their insolence. 



^^s-t 



REBEL CONDITIONS OF PEACE. 

From the Richmond ENQfiEER of October 16, 1863. 

" PEACE." 

" Save on our own terms, we can accept no peace whatever, 
and must fight till doomsday, rather than yield an iota of them, 
and our terms are : 

Kecognition by the enemy of the independence of the Con- 
federate States. 

Withdrawal of the Yankee forces from every foot of Confede- 
rate ground, including Kentucky and Missouri. 

AVithdrawal of the Yankee soldiers from Maryland, until 
that State shall decide, by a free vote, whether she shall 
remain in the old Union, or ask admission into the Confede- 
racy. 

Consent, on the part of the Federal Government, to give up 
to the Confederacy its proportion of the navy as it stood at the 
time of secession, or to pay for the same. 

Yielding up of all pretension, on the part of the Federal 
Government, to that portion of the old Territories which lies 
west of the Confederate States. 

An equitable settlement on the basis of our absolute inde- 
pendence and equal rights of all accounts of the public debt 
and public lands, and the advantages accruing from foreign 
treaties. 

These provisions, we apprehend, comprise the minimum of 
what we must require before we lay down our arms. That is 
to say, the ISTortli must yield all, — we nothing. The whole 
pretension of that country to prevent, by force, the separation 
of the States must be abandoned, which will be equivalent to 
an avowal that our enemies were wrong from the iirst ; and, of 
course, as they waged a causeless and wicked war upon us, they 
ought, in strict justice, to be required, according to usage in 
such cases, to reimburee to us the whole of our expenses and 
losses in the course of that war. Whether this last proviso is 
to be insisted upon or not, certain we are that Ave cannot have 
any peace at all, until we shall be in a position, not only to 
demand and exact, but also to enforce and collect treasure for 
our own reimbursement out of the wealthy cities in the enemy's 
•country. In other words, unless we can destroy or scatter 
their armies, and break up tlieir Government, we can have no 
■^3eace ; and if we can do that, then we ought not only to extort 
from them our own full terms and ample acknowledgment of 
their wrong, but also a handsome indemnity for the trouble 
and expense caused to us by their crime. 

iSTow, we are not yet in position to dictate those terms to our 
enemies, with Roseckans' army still in the heart of our country, 
and Meade still on Virginia soil, but though it is too soon to 
propose such conditions to them, yet it is important that we 
should keep them plainly before our ovra eyes as the only ad- 



miss'ble basis of any conceivable peace. This well fixed in the 
Coriederate mind, there will be no more fearful looking for 
ne^/s from Enrope, as if that blessed peace were to come to us 
over the sea, and not to be conquered on our own ground. 
There will be no more gaping for hints of recognition and filling 
,;of the belly with the East wind ; no more distraction or diver- 
sion from the single momentous business of bracing up every 
nerve and sinew of the country for battle. 

It is especially now, at the moment when great and perhaps 
decisive battles are impending at two or three points, that we 
think it most essential to insist upon the grand and entire mag- 
nificence of the stake and cause. 

Once more we say it is all or nothing. This Confederacy or 
the Yankee nation, one or other, goes down, down to perdition. 
That is to say, one or the other nnist forfeit its national existence 
and lie at the mercy of its mortal enemy. 

We all know by this time the fate in store for us if we suc- 
cumb. The other party has no smaller stake. 

As surely as we completely ruin their armies — and without 
that is no peace nor truce at all — so surely shall we make 
them pay our war debt, though wo wring it out of their hearts. 
And they know it well, and, therefore, they cannot make peace 
except through their utter exhaustion, and absolute inability to 
-strike another blow. 

The stake they have to forfeit, then, if they lose this dreadful 
game, is vital to ours. So is the stake to be won if they win 
anything. It is nQ less thaii the entire possession of our whole 
<}ountry, with us in it, and everything that is ours, from Ohio 
to the Rio Grande, to have and to hold, to them and their heirs 
forever. 

But, on the other hand, what we mean to win is utter separ- 
ation from them for all time. We do not want to govern their 
country, but after levying upon it what seemeth good to us bj 
M'ay of indenmity, we leave it to commence its political life 
again from the beginning, hoping that the lesson may have 
made them sadder and wiser Yankees. 

We shut them out forever, with all their unclean and scound- 
relly vrays, intending to lead our lives here in our own Confed- 
erate way, w^ithin our own well-guarded bounds, and without, 
as St. John says, are dogs. 

And let no Confederate feeble knees and tremulous backbone 
say to us, this complete triumph is impossible ; say that we must 
be content with some kind of compromise, and give and take ; 
on the contrary, we must gain all or lose all, and that the Con- 
federates will indeed win the giant game, we take to be as cer- 
tain as any future event in this uncertain world, 

Meade's army and Kosecranz' once scattered, Lincoln can 
get no more armies. The draft turns out manifestly fruitless. 
Both the German and Irish element are now for peace. The 
Yankees have to bear the brunt of the war themselves, but in 
the meantime their inevitable bankruptcy is advancing like an 



armed man. Hniigrj ruin has them in the wind. It cannot be 
long before the Cabinet of Washington will have, indeed, to 
consider seriously proposals for j^eace, under auspices and ci\r- 
cunistances very difierent from the present. For tlie present 
the war rolls and thunders on, and may God defend the right." 



THE MECHANICS OF THE SOUTH. 

Abject Postuke of Labok and Labokeks, 

The Richmond ^a?am'm(?/', of the 12th inst., says: That on 
Saturday, the 10th inst., a very large and spontaneous meeting 
of the mechanics and workingmen of Richmond was held, to 
consider their interests, and obtain a free expression of the sen- 
timents of the people generally. 

From the resolutions passed, we select the two following : 

Resolved^ That awakened to a sense of the aljject ■posture to 
which labor and we ivho lahor have heen reduced^ and to the 
privileges, which as citizens and people, the Institutions of our 
Country vest in us, we will not sleep again imtil our grasp has 
jvrraly clenched the rights and i7nmtmities loJtich are ours as 
Americans and men : until our just demands have been met hy 
the concessions of all opp)osing elements. 

Iiesolv6d, That it is the duty of the Government to take care 
of the unfortunate, and not the rich. 

The Enquirer is extremely indignant at this assemblage, and 
deals with the " workingmen" in the following fashion : 

" The mechanics of Richmond enjoy all the ' rights and im- 
munities' that any and every other man enjoys, and they will 
not he permitted to ' grasp or clench^ any more. "We hope the 
Legislature of Yirginia will not permit itsef to be influenced 
by such minatory resolutions, to pass a law forbidden by the 
experience of all history, and opposed by the teachings of every 
public economist, and which is now opposed by some of the 
ablest and wisest men of their own body. The men who com- 
pose the armies of the Confederacy have, for the last two years, 
permitted all their ' rights and immunities' to be most materially 
circumscribed, their 'privileges' reduced to the one high and 
holy privilege of shooting and being shot for their country. 
These men, without shoes, blankets, provisions — in want, and 
suifering with wounds, and even unto death, have nobly and 
gallantly borne all these hardships, unnnn-muring and uncc>m- 
plaining. Upon what are these sleepless resolutionists to iix 
their ' grasps V We leave the Governor and Mayor to answer 
these questions, and to interpret these resolutions, and to decide 
what tfielr respective duties nvfy he when the ' grasp>ing'' trnd 
' clenchiiuf heginsP 

W60 



















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